Brad Marchand would have loved to be able to provide a detailed analysis of how his game-winning play developed at the Garden yesterday against the Tampa Bay Lightning. But as the pivotal play began, he was too distracted to see quite what happened.

He was busy yelling at one of the referees.

What he missed was Tampa Bay star Steven Stamkos launching a shot from the right circle with less than 21⁄2 minutes left in the third period and the Lightning killing a penalty. The shot by the sniper, for a change, did not find the top corner of the net — but instead was high and wide, and ringed around the boards and up the far boards.

It was not a smart play while shorthanded late in a tied game — not what you call good situational awareness. And three of the four Tampa players on the ice got caught going the wrong way.

“We gambled and wasted 58 minutes of hard, intelligent, paying-the-price work,” said Lightning coach Guy Boucher. “It hits the net, no problem. He can’t go above (the net). We can’t do that, we just can’t. That’s what we get.”

The puck was retrieved in stride by Patrice Bergeron, who broke out on a clear 2-on-1 with Marchand, whom he set up for the game-winning shot with 2:16 left in what ended up a 3-2 Bruins victory.